Defending Treyarch
I am a big fan of Call of Duty (Modern Warfare and Black Ops). They tell stories - not just the same old run-and-shoot series of unavoidable sequences.
In Black Ops 3, the ending is very mind-boggling. At the same time, the game play is kind of strange in a way. And people go on trying to explain it on their personal blog. That’s awesome! People like the game so much that they spend time to write about its storyline and explain its bits. However, there are people out-there, who had not invested enough time on the matter before writing a mindful piece of work. For example, Paul Tassi, a contributor for FORBES.com.
Here is the link to his article, titled: “‘Black Ops 3’ Lets You Play As A Woman, But Failed To Write A Script To Match” http://www.forbes.com/sites/insertcoin/2015/11/07/black-ops-3-lets-you-play-as-a-women-but-failed-to-write-a-script-to-match/
The author of this article (Paul Tassi) went on and on and on criticizing:
- The character in CoD didn’t even have a name
- Player can choose the gender yet the storyline implies a romantic relationship between the character and a woman (Rachel Kane)
- Treyarch + Activision spent so much but made these mistakes in the script.
However, I would like to point out that Paul Tassi is not sensitive enough to recognize the intended “mistakes” above. He too quickly jumped into the conclusion that Treyarch + Activision are just people with bad tastes or just reckless developers.
But hey, Tassi! It is documented right in the game that the character dies right after the second mission due to surgical complication. In his/her dying process, the player simply reruns the memory of the “real character”, John Taylor, in a virtual reality combat simulation. Now that the player merely reruns the memory of a male, does it matter if:
- The character has a name or not? The character dies very early in the game’s timeline.
- The character can change his/her gender at any time? C’mon - it’s a simulation!!!
- The character has romantic relationship with a female character? Yeah - it’s the memory of a man (John Taylor), what do we expect!?
You gotta think before you judge. Especially for Christians, think carefully before you speak.
DISCLAIMER: I have not played the game but have watched and read most about it.